BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential value of circulating miRNA-122a and miRNA-221 in the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma. METHODS Serum samples were obtained from 85 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and 85 age-matched and sex-matched healthy volunteers. miRNAs were isolated from the serum samples, and alfa-fetoprotein levels were determined. Expressi...

BACKGROUND The discovery of circulating cell-free fetal nucleic acids in maternal plasma has opened up new possibilities for noninvasive prenatal diagnosis. The potential application of this technology for the noninvasive prenatal detection of fetal chromosomal aneuploidies is an aspect of this field that is being actively investigated. The main challenge of work in this area is the fact that c...

The analysis of circulating nucleic acids has been accepted for more than a decade as a novel noninvasive tool for prenatal diagnosis and monitoring of pregnancy-associated disorders, as well as for monitoring other diseases such as cancer and diabetes (1–3 ). In this issue of Clinical Chemistry, Tsui et al. present a study in which they successfully investigated the complete maternal plasma tr...

Fetal nucleated erythrocytes circulating in maternal blood are a potential source of fetal DNA for noninvasive prenatal genetic diagnosis. However, the estimated ratio of fetal to maternal cells is extremely small. In order to enrich these cells, we performed direct culture using a two-phase liquid system. Mononuclear cells were obtained from maternal blood samples at 8-10(+3) weeks of gestatio...

Rare mutations in cell populations are known to be hallmarks of many diseases and cancers. Similarly, differential DNA methylation patterns arise in rare cell populations with diagnostic potential such as fetal cells circulating in maternal blood. Unfortunately, the frequency of alleles with diagnostic potential, relative to wild-type background sequence, is often well below the frequency of er...

Maternal diet and metabolism impact fetal development. Epigenetic reprogramming facilitates fetal adaptation to these in utero cues. To determine if maternal metabolite levels impact infant DNA methylation globally and at growth and development genes, we followed a clinical birth cohort of 40 mother-infant dyads. Targeted metabolomics and quantitative DNA methylation were analyzed in 1st trimes...

BACKGROUND Cell-free fetal DNA and cell-free total DNA in maternal circulation have been proposed as potential markers for noninvasive monitoring of the placental condition during the pregnancy. However, the correlation of and change in cell-free fetal DNA and cell-free total DNA in spontaneous abortion (SA) with fetal chromosomal aneuploidy have not yet been reported. Therefore, we investigate...

BACKGROUND Fetal DNA in maternal urine, if present, would be a valuable source of fetal genetic material for noninvasive prenatal diagnosis. However, the existence of fetal DNA in maternal urine has remained controversial. The issue is due to the lack of appropriate technology to robustly detect the potentially highly degraded fetal DNA in maternal urine. METHODOLOGY We have used massively pa...

Plasma consists of DNA released from multiple tissues within the body. Using genome-wide bisulfite sequencing of plasma DNA and deconvolution of the sequencing data with reference to methylation profiles of different tissues, we developed a general approach for studying the major tissue contributors to the circulating DNA pool. We tested this method in pregnant women, patients with hepatocellul...